“I can let you off, lady,” he explained. “But I doubt whether you can get any means of returning at this point. Besides, when we arrive at the next station, we may expect an answer concerning the child. In that way you will get word quicker than if you were to return at once.”
“Mrs. Vernon,” urged the nurse, “it would be the worst thing you could do to return. You are physically unfit just now to walk or make any kind of exertion. You need several hours of complete rest. If you take my advice, you will go on and not attempt to leave the car until the shock has passed and your strength returns.”
“But I must go back—I must!” cried Barbara hysterically. As she spoke she suddenly rose and took a few quick steps. But the effort was too much. She staggered, and despite her efforts fell back into the arms of the kind matron.
CHAPTER III
IT NEVER RAINS BUT IT POURS
But Bobby was not drowned. Peggy and he, as the wave caught him, were not alone. Seated on the ledge of a cliff, hidden almost completely from view, a bather, tall and plump, once a professional life-saver, had been watching the two children carefully. He had noted the roller even before Peggy. He was at a considerable distance from the children; but as Peggy turned to fly he was dashing, diagonally, across the beach. It was nothing for him, tall and strong of limb, to plunge into the water, to reach the very spot where Bobby had disappeared, and when Bobby’s head came to the surface, to take a few strong strokes, reach the unconscious boy, and bring him almost without effort to the shore.
Bobby, I say, was unconscious; and the rescuer, for a moment, doubted whether the little lad was alive. Paying no attention, therefore, to the fleeing Peggy, the man, experienced in such matters, endeavored to restore the lad to consciousness. Bobby had swallowed much salt water. It was the work of a few moments to remedy that trouble. Then the man put himself to the task of getting the boy to breathe. In the shade of the cliff he labored long and arduously. Almost a quarter of an hour passed before Bobby’s face showed the slightest sign of life. Eventually he began to breathe.
“Hey, boy! you’re doing fine,” cried the man. “Come on now, and wake up.”
Adjured in such like terms at least twenty times, Bobby at length opened his eyes upon a world which he had almost left for good.
“Howdy, Johnny? Are you awake?”
Bobby looked gravely at his companion and, the inspection completed, asked, as he closed his eyes again: